


Barriers

by hannigramcracker, TimmyJaybird



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Hand Jobs, In the whole universe, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sebastian is the saddest most pathetic man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 05:25:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4612839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannigramcracker/pseuds/hannigramcracker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimmyJaybird/pseuds/TimmyJaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been three months since Sebastian got out of Ruvik's nightmare. Three months since he's been back to work. Three months since his life had been normal - or the sense of normal that he was used to. Three months since he's seen his partner. Three months since he'd seen or heard or held Joseph outside of his dreams, his hallucinations. Three months that come crashing down around him with a knock at his door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barriers

**Author's Note:**

> This only took us literally three million years to finish but I am so happy that we are finally posting it. I have missed these two men more than I would care to admit.

It had been three months. Three months since Sebastian had somehow wrestled his way out of Ruvik’s hellhole. Three. Long. Months.

  
His life felt like it was at a stand still. He couldn’t go back to work, not really, not when he feared that any crime scene he walked into would be the one to transport him back into that world filled with carnage. Stupidly, he had attempted to return to work only two weeks after returning back to the real world, and that had been the worst _fucking_ thing he had ever done. He had spent the better part of twenty minutes hyperventilating in the back of a squad car while the rest of his team conducted the investigation. He remembered the marks and sores he had clawed into his own skin in an attempt to convince himself that he was actually present. The pain lingered, his blood had stained the seat slightly, and he had to consciously keep himself from searching for a bright green syringe to allay the pain.

  
For almost two weeks after that, he was unable to leave his apartment for much more than a quick trip to the store, and soon even that proved to be too much. He could barely handle walking to the gas station to top off his supply of beer. He prefered liquor, that was for sure, but he couldn’t stomach the trip across town. He feared that the roads would rip and fly apart like they had before, inside his own head. He couldn’t risk that happening again. He ordered out - knew the pizza man and the girl who delivered his Thai food by name by the end of it. They had stopped accepting his tips and he stopped offering - that is, until he convinced the pizza boy to bring him a bottle of bottom shelf whiskey for an extra twenty dollars.

  
He couldn’t make himself return to work when any number of the other members of KCPD were liable to barrage him with questions he had no real answer for: where he had been, why he looked so rough, and worst of all - where his partner had gone?

  
They had the best intentions, Sebastian knew, but it had been three fucking months since he had seen or heard from Joseph Oda. And thinking about that more than he had to hurt like hell, though Joseph admittedly was on his mind more often than he wasn’t.

Sebastian was alone. All alone in his tiny apartment, in his tiny life that had begun to unravel and break apart where it used to be held together was such surety. Nothing in his world was sure anymore - it hadn’t been even before this ordeal. He had no one he could go to, no one who would listen to his troubles, even if he were able to speak them. His wife was gone, his daughter -- and now Joseph was gone as well. His loneliness was almost tangible in the air of his apartment, stuffy and suffocating, mixed with the smell of stale beer and pizza crusts.

He had thought, for a while, about going to see a therapist. People did that, right? That was a normal thing? Sebastian had considered it, even just for someone to _speak_ with, a mandatory conversation to hold every week, something to make sure he didn’t forget how to use his voice, to make sure he knew more words than his food orders and “thanks, kid”.

But, ultimately, Sebastian decided against it. There was no way he was going to be able to tell another person, much less a professional about what had gone on behind his eyes, yet had been so real. It might be something that normal people do to deal with a trauma, but nothing about Sebastian’s life was normal anymore, and it never would be again. A therapist would listen to him speak two words before trying to admit him to good old Beacon Mental Hospital - miraculously still standing in spite of Sebastian’s desires to tear it down. The thought of waking up alone in a padded room with nothing but a white bed and white desk and white walls and white, white, _white_ \- that could be so easily stained red - made his heart beat quicken and his stomach clench and twist with panic.

So, he stayed quiet, stayed to himself, and retreated even further into his bottle.

After about a month of this, he realized he couldn’t stay in his apartment forever. One morning, he woke up and decided he needed a shower and needed to go to the damn grocery store. The milk in his fridge had long since turned and his cupboards held such rejected dregs of food that it was almost laughable. His fridge was full of half eaten pizza, and forgotten take out containers that wouldn’t fit in the trash can. He had to go outside, and buy himself some bread and some damn coffee. Sebastian had been feeling pretty good about his decision, right up until he sat in his car in the parking lot of the store.

He watched the people bustling around him, filling their trunks and wheeling carts back to the entrance, or leaving them abandoned on the asphalt. He unbuckled and tried to ignore the way his fingers were trembling as he unlocked his door and pocketed his keys. He just needed to get a few things, only a few. He could do this. In and out. That’s it.  
But once Sebastian was inside, he wished that he had stayed home for another day. He should have waited, he wasn’t ready for this - but even he knew how pathetic that sounded. He was staring at countless colorful boxes of cereal, not really seeing anything, when someone reached around in front of him and snatched a box off the shelf.

Sebastian didn’t register anything except a pair of short, leather gloves.

Eyes wide, and a strangled noise on his lips, Sebastian looked down the aisle in the direction the man had gone. He saw nothing except a blur of color slip around the corner, a vest and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a notebook sticking out of his back pocket.

_No_.

It couldn’t have been --

Sebastian quickly rounded the corner as well, his partner’s name hanging between his teeth. The few people in the aisle looked back at him, but none of them with the glasses and pale skin he was aching to see again. Hurriedly, Sebastian picked up a few haphazard things and checked out, barely saying two words to the girl ringing him up.  
His mind was spinning, awash in color. He could almost smell Joseph standing next to him. There was no way he had been there, it was just Sebastian’s mind taunting him - and that terrified him more than anything else. He had been _sure_ he had seen Joseph, but he knew he couldn’t trust himself. He would never see Joseph ever again, and he knew that.  
He knew that, even when he saw the silhouette of a slender body standing next to the passenger side door of his car. He knew it when he drove away and the seat next to him was empty. He knew it when he parked outside of his apartment and Joseph slipped into the shadows of the alley next to the building, and he knew it when Joseph slinked down the hallway and up the stairs away from him.

Since then, Sebastian had not dared to venture out. He could bribe the delivery boy to bring him whatever he needed, even if it was just something. With a twinge in his chest, Sebastian realized that the young man probably felt bad for him. He felt terribly pathetic - he was grown man for god’s sake, he should be able to care for himself and not have to rely on the kindness of an almost-stranger. But there was nothing he could do about it, not since whenever he looked out the window in his bedroom, he saw Joseph leaning against the light post on the sidewalk.

Three heavy handed shots of whiskey singing in his system, stubby ends of smoked cigarettes surrounding him, Sebastian stared out the window. He held his arms tightly around his chest and tried to keep the sobs inside as tears spilled over into his already blurred vision. He watched the hallucination of Joseph and longed to open up the window and scream down to him, but he was terrified that would shatter the illusion forever. He settled instead for staring, watching him jot a few notes in his notebook, press his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a gloved finger.

Sebastian close his eyes and sighed, wondering how in the world the paths he had taken in life had led him here, to this, when a knock at the door broke him from his thoughts. Slightly startled, he knew he had not ordered any take out tonight - he had enough leftovers to last him until the day after tomorrow. Maybe it was the delivery boy checking up on him. Standing up to investigate, he cast one last glance down into the street.  
Joseph was gone.

The knock resounded through his apartment again, with more of an urgency this time.

Sebastian stared at the door for a moment, as if the sound would rattle it, jar it from its hinges and throw it open. As if clawing hands would find their way in, reach for him, want to rip him open wide. He swallowed the lump in his throat and, with stiff, forced steps, closed the gap and worked open the chain lock, flicking his wrist with the other lock, and grabbing the handle.

Inhale. Turn. Pull.

He expected the delivery boy. He expected empty space. He expected anything in the world, even in hell below, except what he got.

Joseph stared out at him, with large, dark eyes- hidden behind the wall of his glasses, drinking Sebastian in as if he wasn’t real. The detective stared at his partner- a man missing for months, and felt his chest constricting, pulling tighter and tighter in along his lungs and heart, pushing the air out of him, forcing his heart to race to keep the space it occupied free. His insides were ice, a sharp ache in his belly as his hands at his sides shook.

He was hallucinating. He had to be.

Still, “Joseph?” left his lips, a name that felt strange to speak, despite the endless nights he had woken up shouting it, screaming it, sobbing it. The times he sat and stared at the wall and whispered it, praying with his dying mantra that his partner would materialize, step from the shadows on the wall and fall down onto him. To feel leather on skin again- Joseph’s masked hands, it was everything he needed.

Joseph didn’t say anything at first, he tilted his head slightly, taking in Sebastian’s face, the stubble that had gone far too long, the shadows under his eyes, the way his hair fell as if he had rolled out of bed only moments ago. Fraying at the seams, more so than he had been before, before _everything_ -

Joseph took a step towards him, and Sebastian reached out, hands grasping his biceps, stopping the man in his tracks. He should have disappeared then and there, should never have been able to step over the threshold and into Sebastian’s apartment- but he did, despite the older man’s hold on him. Stepped into Sebastian’s shadow, into his dust, his ash, his breath.

Stood chest to chest with him, glancing up skittishly, as if Sebastian might reach out and bite him, claw at his pale throat and rip out his arteries- allow him to bleed out right there in the doorway.

Instead Sebastian’s arms moved, hands left his biceps and wrapped around Joseph, crashing him against his chest and holding him so tightly the air was forced from his lungs. Someone was shaking, trembling, and neither knew who it was, but it didn’t matter. It could have been reality around them cracking, and it was fine-

It was _alright_ , Sebastian wanted to believe, if this was really Joseph.

“Where the fuck were you?” he muttered, resting his face in Joseph’s hair, inhaling. Joseph used to smell like fresh soap, like the same moderately expensive cologne he wore day in, day out, relentlessly. Now he smelled like ash, burnt and terrified- the stench of fear clung to his skin and hair as if he was fresh from a nightmare, as if he had clawed from the viscera of Ruvik’s mind and directly to Sebastian’s doorway.

And he was _cold_.

Joseph never answered Sebastian’s question, and the detective didn’t ask it again. Instead he stepped back, pulling the man in with him. He let go only to close the door, to refasten the locks- to keep the world out. To keep the nightmares in.

In the dim light, Sebastian could see the dirt on Joseph’s shirt, flecks of it on his skin. He still looked bruised, there were lilac and buttercup blossoms along one of his arms. It made Sebastian’s belly tighten even further.

“Do you-” he started, then stopped to lick his lips, to try and find the words again. He was breathless just looking at Joseph. If this Joseph was real, he might die simply from the way his heart was pounding within its cage. “Do you want to get cleaned up?” He reached out, rested his hand on Joseph’s shoulder- less intimate, for Sebastian feared if he opened up he might drown this man, suffocate him and fill his lungs with all the blood that pumped through his body, flowed _for_ him, because Sebastian had no one else to live for.

He couldn’t live for himself. He’d hung on these past weeks, months, simply for Joseph. Simply hoping to have him back, to _save_ him.

What a joke. He couldn’t even save himself.

“Maybe a shower?” It took a moment, before Joseph finally nodded. He was still silent, but Sebastian accepted it, could handle it. He wanted to hear his voice, his name on Joseph’s tongue, but if he was given silence for eternity he’d take it, just to have the man back.

Moving for the first time in what felt like eternities with a purpose, Sebastian strode to the bathroom, turned on the water, gathered up a towel and settled it on the toilet. He didn’t hear Joseph move, and jerked back a moment when he turned and he was there, in the doorway, watching with silent eyes. He was a spector then, ghostly, ethereal, perfect and terrifying and Sebastian felt his legs going weak.

He wanted to speak, to scream. He wanted answers and he wanted to hold the man and sob. He wanted to know if they were dreaming still, even now. He wanted to pull Joseph apart until he was inside him, burrowed in bone and flesh, until there was no way to take the two apart again.  
Instead, Sebastian stepped past him carefully, leaving him with the running water to soothe his bruised skin, to wash away the ash and dirt that had no name, no place, no home.  
Sebastian thought perhaps _he_ was that dirt.

Joseph shut the door, it latched into place with a soft _click_ and Sebastian was left alone in the hallway. He stood there for a moment, just listening to the water run and the slight rustling of Joseph taking off his clothes. He knew he should stop just standing there, he should do _something_ \- but he had no idea what.

He should go in the kitchen and make something for Joseph to eat. The man had felt so small in his arms, smaller than he had ever been. It was almost like he could feel every jut and curve of his bones beneath his paper thin skin. Sebastian forced his feet to move in the direction of the kitchen, even though he was staggeringly aware of the fact that his last trip outside had been nearly a month and a half ago, and he didn’t think he could offer Joseph a piece of cold pizza so old the cheese had started to stiffen up. He didn’t have any tea to make - Joseph liked tea, he always remembered poking fun at him for the tags hanging from his mug while everyone else drank coffee - hell, he didn’t even have any coffee.

He had literally _nothing_ , and he almost thought about calling up the delivery boy to see if he could bring something. He shot that idea down rather quickly, however. He didn’t want Joseph to know just how fucked up he had been, not right away. He knew it would be hard to hide for a long time, but he thought he could get through the first night at least.

If Joseph even stayed the night.

Sebastian hoped he would.

No, it was something more than hope. It was an aching need, a hunger seated deep within him. A starvation for contact, for company, but something more than even that. Sebastian needed _Joseph_ more than he had ever needed anything in his life. And now that the other man was here, right here, practically dropped in his lap, he could not let that go again so quickly.

Sebastian left the kitchen, giving up on finding something to be a suitable host with, and sat heavily on his couch. He rested his elbows on his knees and held his forehead in his hands. His right leg jumped nervously, he couldn’t stop it if he tried. Sebastian reached forward to the coffee table in front of him and scooped up a pack of cigarettes that had been sitting there. He shook one free and lit it after striking his lighter a few times. His hands still trembled, remembering the feel of Joseph beneath him. He tried to inhale a steady breath, but coughed a bit at the bite of the smoke, even as it helped to calm him.

He exhaled, watching the smoke diffuse into nothing, and listened to the shower run in the background. A small piece of him (growing, growing) feared that the Joseph that had walked into his apartment was still only just a part of his mind turning against him. He never should have let Joseph out of his sight, but even if he hadn’t he was still terrified that he would see Joseph disappear into the air around them just like the smoke that was carrying air into his lungs. Joseph would be nothing more than smoke, a pile of ash, blown away by a fragile breeze, much less the monsoon that Sebastian’s life had become.

Dropping the cigarette on the table, not caring that it was going to add a burnt spot to the countless others already there, Sebastian leaned his head into his hands once more. What if he had made it all up? What if Joseph had never even entered his apartment, never even came to the door? What if Sebastian had convinced himself someone had knocked when no one had been there? Convinced himself that Joseph needed a shower and turned the water on to an empty bathroom, an empty apartment.

It wouldn’t have been the first time he had turned on the shower and left it to feel less alone, waking up in the morning to only cold water to wash his hair in - if he even could find the energy to shower.

Sebastian tugged on his hair, wanted to smack himself around a little bit, just so he could feel something. He needed to be broken out of this cycle, he needed to be punished for imagining such damaging things, he needed to fucking _stop_ being so god damn pathetic. No wonder his wife had left him, no wonder Joseph hadn’t come back, it was no wonder that he was alone --

Just as his breath was starting to come at an alarmingly shallow pace, he heard a crash from the direction of the closed door to the bathroom. Sebastian stopped breathing, stopped moving, hadn’t even really realized he had been rocking back and forth to begin with, and strained to hear another sound. His ears buzzed with the effort, his mind creating white static to fill in the gaps of silence. After a few quiet moments, Sebastian heard what was unmistakably Joseph’s voice saying something he couldn’t quite make out.  
He was going to continue to give his partner privacy and use the sound of his voice as reassurance that he was not imagining or hallucinating, until he heard Joseph speak again.

His voice was muffled from behind the door and under the spray of the shower, but it was clear what he was saying.

“Seb?” Joseph’s small voice called out. “Sebastian?”

Sebastian was across his apartment in seconds, moving faster than he even knew he was capable of. He paused at the door and knocked with two knuckles, still not wanting to overstep a boundary that past three months and what preceded had grown. He would be heartbroken if he misstepped and sent Joseph running when all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around the other man again.

“Joseph?” He called through the crack in the door. He could still hear the water running, but he could hear something else, too - something that sounded like sniffling. “Are you okay?”

“ _Seb-_ ”

Sebastian could hear it in Joseph’s voice now, the way it shook when he said his name. Joseph was barely holding back sobs.

“I’m coming in, Jojo. Is that okay?”

“Y-yes.”

Sebastian cracked the bathroom door, opening it slowly and still half expecting to see an empty room. But what he saw instead made his heart travel into his throat.  
Joseph was sitting next to the side of the bathtub, naked bony knees drawn to his chest, his cheek resting against them. His skinny arms were drawn around his legs and Sebastian could tell he was shivering. As he got closer, he dropped to his knees in front of the other man, and noticed his glasses strewn on the floor next to him - completely smashed.

“Oh, Joseph, what happened?” Sebastian asked, lightly touching his fingertips to Joseph’s exposed cheek.

“I f-... _ah_ -” Joseph cut himself off with a gasp and Sebastian could see worlds of horror in his eyes, reflecting back at him like a vintage movie projector - flicking through macabre displays of viscera that they had both been witness to.

“Hey, you’re okay. I’m right here, you’re right here.” Sebastian tried his best to sound comforting. But was that the truth? Was he here? Were either of them _really_ there?

“I fell.” Joseph said, around harsh gasps of air that didn’t stay in his lungs nearly long enough to do any good. “M-my legs...just...they just - I fell. My glasses are broken-”  
Sebastian had never seen Joseph so unsure of himself or his words before. He always seemed to know what he was going to say at least five minutes before he said it. Everything was rehearsed and refined. But now this man was stuttering in front of him and tears were falling unchecked from his eyes and it sent something cold and sharp ringing through Sebastian’s viens.

“Are you okay? We can get you new glasses, don’t worry about that.”

“I hit my head.” Joseph whimpered, curling in on himself further but also somehow inching closer to Sebastian. He sounded like a child, and Sebastian wanted nothing more than to care for him until he was calm and happy and smiling again.

But Sebastian had no idea how to do that. He wasn’t sure either of them could _ever_ be happy and smiling again.

Sebastian curled his arm up over Joseph’s neck, into his wet hair and pressed against his scalp, over the tender spot that ached right to Joseph’s brain. The smaller man tipped his head down, gave the other better access, and Sebastian was tempted to rest his mouth on Joseph’s forehead, the mouth his name, over and over again. Little things, words he used to know, he used to say- but they were gone now. Dust on his tongue and he wasn’t sure he could offer much more than this.

“Let’s get you dried off,” he finally offered. When he pulled back, separated himself, Joseph let the tiniest of sounds escape his throat. Sebastian felt it in his bones, aching up from even his toes and out through his eyes. He offered his hand, and when Joseph took it, he felt fire in his skin. Palm to palm, he pulled the naked man up, offered him his towel with the other. Joseph took it, hastily wrapping it around his thin waist. He followed Sebastian out of the bathroom, careful to avoid the remnants of his glasses.

Sebastian wanted to wrap an arm around his lithe waist, guide him down to his bedroom where he had laid clothing out for him- all too large, he knew, always had been, and now- it seemed Joseph had melted right off his bones, now he would swim in anything Sebastian offered him. But he felt terrified to touch him still, the briefest of touches just seemed to be unreal, or too real- Sebastian wasn’t sure which. And he was terrified, _so terrified_ , of Joseph disappearing, right under his hand- or right out the door.

Instead of touching, he simply guided, stopping at the open door to his bedroom. “I laid some things out for you,” he offered, and Joseph nodded, his silent _thanks_. Sebastian turned away before he could give himself away, before he could grab the man like a part of him wanted to, hold him and crash their mouths together and bring out the Joseph he knew had to be locked inside this man, this husk. He _had_ to be.

His Joseph couldn’t be dead.

Sebastian was quick to escape, make his way back to the living room, the couch. He could still smell the smoke from his last cigarette, see the fresh burn mark on his coffee table. He sagged back, closed his eyes, pressed the heels of his hands against his sockets until he saw white sparking within the black. Until everything was static behind his eyelids.

He didn’t hear Joseph’s footsteps, not until he was brushing past Sebastian’s legs, until the faint sounds of his breath broke the silence of the air. Sebastian hesitated, and then there were hands around his wrists, pulling his hands away from his face. Joseph moved carefully, fluid, melting onto Sebastian’s lap as he straddled him. It took Sebastian a moment to realize the younger man was still naked, all pale flesh and curves of bone. He glanced up at Joseph in the dim, dusty light- caught his dark eyes staring down, searching, taking Sebastian in and analyzing him, breaking him apart piece by piece.

His hands tightened around Sebastian’s wrists, which throbbed gently against Joseph’s palms. His heart beat should have been wild, felt it in his chest, but his pulse felt slack.

“Haven’t felt you without gloves,” Sebastian started, his voice feeling foreign, sounding foreign. “In a long time.”

Joseph gave a nod, tiny, the faintest of movements. Gentle rivets of water had curved down his neck, over his collarbone, to drain of life on his chest. Sebastian’s clothes held faint damp ghosts now where Joseph’s skin pressed tightly to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to begin to care.

“I need to know you’re real,” Joseph finally offered, his voice sounding slightly more sure than it had minutes prior, in the bathroom. Calmer. “I need to know I’m not crazy.”

Sebastian smiled. Couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it, and it spread across his face in a sad real way. He leaned closer, smelled soap on Joseph’s skin, felt Joseph’s hands releasing his wrists. He wrapped his arms around the younger man, looped around his waist- thinner yes, so much thinner, and held him, as those hands found his neck, pressed along his cheeks. Fingers twitched, and a thumb traced over Sebastian’s mouth.

Then, hesitating a moment, moving with small stops- as if he were unsure- Joseph leaned closer, closer, until he could smell the cigarettes on Sebastian’s breath, until he was breathing in the other man’s air, and then their lips were touching- only the faintest of brushes, barely a kiss if that. But it was enough, for a moment later Joseph let out in a choked sob, “Seb,” and pressed his mouth back to Sebastian’s, his hands drifting back into his hair, grasping and holding as his mouth moved with an ache against the other man’s.

Sebastian’s hands sprawled along his back, felt every curve of bone within his spine. Joseph rocked against him, moved in a way that could have been, would have been sexual, once. Now, it was simply Joseph wanting to crawl into his skin, bury as deep inside Sebastian as he wanted to be inside Joseph. Inside rib, vertebrae. Tangled down into his marrow.

Joseph’s thighs were pressed tightly against Sebastian’s. Once there had been lean music there, enough to lift him, move him in a way that Sebastian had always found inhuman and utterly divine- now he moved but with less sureness, trembled slightly as he leaned into Sebastian and sucked on his tongue in a way that had Sebastian’s blunt nails digging into his back.

 

“Where were you,” Sebastian breathed again, when he was given a chance. Joseph seemed to sag against him then, pressing his forehead to the older man’s and closing his eyes.

“I never left,” he murmured, then began to shake. “I never left.”

Sebastian’s head buzzed, vertigo surged and the colors overwhelmed. All the air seemed to leave the room and his grip on Joseph tightened, as though if he let go the man might disappear into that nightmare once more. He feared what little color saturated him would drain away, leaving a black and white version, a monochrome husk in his arms. Sebastian tried to breathe around the surge of emotion that assaulted him, around the shock of Joseph’s statement. He knew he needed to say something, needed to reassure Joseph _right now_. That was his job. He was supposed to keep Joseph safe at all costs.

And yet he hadn’t.

What else was there to say?

“You never left?” Sebastian’s lips formed the words slowly, the question lolling off his tongue. A lame repeated echo of what Joseph had admitted.

“I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t get out.” Joseph trembled against him. Sebastian felt him press his face into the hollow crook of his neck and breathe in deeply. His thoughts flew unbidden to the last time he showered (when had that been? Yesterday? Last week?) He rubbed his hand down Joseph’s back, but the movement stuttered, insecure, unsure.

“Joseph…” Sebastian couldn’t find the words. He had months of words for the man curled into his lap, months of things said to empty walls, pleas that had fallen on deaf ears until this evening, but they snagged in his teeth and wrapped around his tongue and fell back down his throat. He had so much he wanted to say to his partner, but all he could say was his name. Something like a soft reassurance to both of them that they were here in this moment, and not anywhere else. “Joseph.”

“I lost you. I lost everyone. I couldn’t get out. I tried. I _tried_.” Joseph’s voice was shaking, wet. Sebastian was reminded of Leslie for one terribly disorienting moment by the way Joseph kept repeating himself.

“I kept seeing you. Whenever I left my apartment. At the store. And then in the road, right outside.” Sebastian mumbled into Joseph’s hairline, pointing out the window he would spend hours staring out of with his stubbled chin.

“I tried, Seb. I-I tried. I tr-” Joseph cut himself off with a gasp and shudder and Sebastian felt him tense up and cling impossibly tighter. His nails dug into the back of Sebastian’s neck and he was sure that the skin was broken. He wasn’t sure he minded. Maybe covering themselves in his blood would make them feel whole again. Viscera and carnage were all the knew. Maybe things would feel more normal if they were to bathe in each other’s blood. Bleed each other out bit by bit, inhabit each the other’s bloodstream slowly. Cleanse them of their transgressions. Of every wrong that they had done and that had been done against them, a blood sacrifice to a strange and perverse god.

It wasn’t until Joseph choked on a breathy sob that Sebastian took action. He smoothed his hands down Joseph’s back with more surety this time, wrapping his hands beneath the other’s shaking arms. He lifted Joseph with much more ease than he would have been able to half a year ago and found himself wondering when the the man last ate. Pushing that thought to the back of his mind, he shifted on the couch until his legs were outstretched across the cushions. He settled Joseph between them, his back to Sebastian’s chest. Sebastian moved his arms to wrap lightly around Joseph’s chest. He didn’t want to be suffocating, but he knew that Joseph needed his contact by the way he nestled into his chest.

“You gotta breathe, Jojo, okay? I really don’t want you to hyperventilate on me.”

Sebastian was thankful that his voice came out stronger than it felt inside his chest. Joseph nodded in front of him and Sebastian pressed a kiss into the back of his head. He reached down and splayed a hand across Joseph’s stomach, hoping that he was spreading warmth and calm into the other man - warmth and calm that he certainly did not have himself.

“You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

Joseph leaned his head back onto Sebastian’s shoulder and began to breathe easily. Shaky deep breaths exhaled to the ceiling and Sebastian’s hands entwined around his waist, and Joseph began to relax. Sebastian hastily grabbed the blanket slung over the back of the couch and covered Joseph’s legs with it. He was worried that the man was cold and cold always made the panic cling, but he was also getting terribly distracted by the very real and very naked man between his clothed legs. This was not the time or place for that, and Sebastian knew it.

“You’re okay.” Sebastian repeated into Joseph’s hair - hair that smelled like the cheap soap the delivery boy had picked up for him at the drugstore on the way to his house.

“I don’t know what I am,” Joseph said after a moment of silence. “But it isn’t okay.”

Sebastian was glad that he was behind Joseph because he could not help the cringe that overtook his features. Suddenly, he was back - he was there, in all the mess, all the ruin.

With monsters - _real_ monsters, not just imagined shadows - lurking around every corner, out for blood, able to smell the ichor that raced through his veins. He saw Joseph becoming one of them, saw him hacking and coughing and changing, and clung to his naked shoulders tighter. He buried his face in one of them, mouth on his shoulder blade, forehead near his neck.

“I tried to come back.” Joseph whispered. Sebastian listened. He couldn’t do anything else. “I almost made it, a few times, but something stopped me short. I never could figure out what. Probably - probably _Ruvik_.”

Joseph spit his name out like it was poison. Vile. Disgusting.

As it was, as far as Sebastian was concerned. Anyone that could hurt Joseph like this was the worst monster that there could be. Joseph had always been the strong one, despite both of their exteriors. He had been on the receiving end of more drunk sobbing phone calls than Sebastian would like to admit. And that had been before this ordeal. He almost hoped that Joseph had lost his cell phone in the midst of all this chaos - he knew he had been leaving increasingly incoherent messages on the man’s voicemail in the past few months. He would call over and over, only to hear his voice repeat the recorded message. Sebastian had it memorized. The words were on the tip of his tongue as he held onto Joseph, still trying to convince himself he was _actually there_.

“I - I saw you. A few times. I could never tell if it was just....just my mind. But, if you said you saw me too, I think it was probably actually you. I was trying to come back here, to break through the barrier between our world and his. I don’t know what I did differently this time. I’m...I’m still not completely sure that I _am_ actually here now.” Joseph spoke the last bit in a whisper, small enough that Sebastian would not have heard it if he were not directly behind him. Joseph reached up to adjust glasses that weren’t there before settling his hands back in the tattered afghan on his lap, bringing it up to his chin and covering Sebastian’s arms as well.

“You are. You are actually here. I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t.”

Joseph was silent for a few more moments. He kept swallowing and opening his mouth as though to speak, but said nothing. Until finally, “Convince me.”  
Sebastian’s breath caught in his throat, the smallest of sounds lost under the ways Joseph’s hands clutched at the afghan, shifting it. He leaned his head back, letting it fall against the larger man’s shoulder, his eyes falling shut.

He was dreaming, hallucinating. Hearing things, whispers from memories, from desires of nights long past. Things Joseph had said to him, once upon dark nights from times past, forgotten.

“Please,” Joseph added, one of his hands laying atop Sebastian’s, where his fingers were still laced, resting atop Joseph’s belly. Gently, he worked them free, until he was lifting one, sliding it down his body, along the hollow of his navel.

Sebastian should have stopped him. Should have resisted. There was a voice inside him, a hollow echo, that told him so. Told him Joseph needed sleep, needed to eat, needed time to sort out his thoughts. But hell, wasn’t that what _he_ needed too?

Time hadn’t helped at all. Sebastian was proof of that.

His hand ran along Joseph’s groin, palming him, soft flesh that Joseph pushed up, against his hand. The smaller man’s mouth fell open, soundlessly, as Seb worked calloused fingers against the sensitive flesh, gently. Felt it swelling with each breath that came, faster now, from the thin man laying against him.

Sex had grounded them, once. Sebastian knew that. Remembered what it was like to have Joseph beneath him, a layer of flesh and blood and bone against the mattress, squirming and pushing back against him. Remembered because there was heat, sounds- his sweet voice and the wet sounds of each and every kiss they shared. It had pulled him in, to that moment. Pulled him from anger, from self-hatred, from feelings of utter worthlessness.

It had made him feel more. As if he was more than a single emotion, a string of failures.

If it could do for Joseph even half of what it had done for Sebastian, who was he to deny him?

He wrapped his hand around Joseph’s shaft- hard now, and _god_ , how long had it been? How many nights without him, without this? How many dreams, mingled in with the nightmares, where he had Joseph again, mewling his name and _feeling good_?

Could they actually feel good, ever again?

Joseph arched up, bones of his shoulder blades digging into Sebastian’s chest. It hurt, slightly, but Seb didn’t mind. There was reality in it. In feeling warm flesh in his hand, Joseph’s labored breaths, those sharp juts of bone. So much at once, too much for his mind to be making up.

“Jo-”

“Don’t,” he breathed, licking his lips as Sebastian’s hand slowed, thumb swiping up along the head of his cock, teasing the slit. “Don’t stop. It...it-feels-”

“ _Real_?”

Joseph nodded, and Sebastian turned, pressed his mouth against his temple, picked up the pace with his strokes again. Joseph let out a soft moan, with none of the force they had, once. But there was nothing to him, nothing left but bone, expired blood- Sebastian wasn’t even sure where he found the energy for his ragged breaths.

“Seb,” he whimpered, broken sounding- almost a sob. Different, from the sobs Joseph had given him, once. Desperate and lonely and utterly _despairing_. But real, from the hollows of his bones, the cracks of his ribs. _Not in his mind_.

Sebastian leaned forward, forced Joseph to sit up more, so he could bury his face in the crook of his neck. He kissed his pulse, the caged bird in his veins, sucked against the skin until the man was mewling, bucking up into his hands-

And then giving a sharp, sudden cry- short, lasting not even a breath, his hips jerking up once. Sebastian squeezed, strokes him through the pulses until Joseph was going limp, falling back against him, panting. With each rise of his chest, Sebastian could see the curves of his ribs, tight under skin.

He was wasting away. He was nothing. And somehow, Sebastian had still taken from him.

“Hey,” Sebastian whispered, wishing he could see Joseph’s dark eyes. Were his lashes still thick? He hadn’t even thought to notice. “Jo. I...I need you to say something.”

He was worried he had overstepped. What was he thinking, even _if_ his partner wanted it. Rest. Warmth. A shield against the reality that shouldn’t have even been more than a nightmare. That was what he needed. Not to have Sebastian get him off on his couch. As if that was all he had thought about, while missing him.

If Sebastian wrote for the rest of his life, he could never fill enough pages with everything he had thought of while Joseph was gone.

But Joseph didn’t. He squirmed, turning awkwardly onto his side, nearly fitting between Sebastian’s body and the back of the couch. He reached a hand up, fingertips running along the stubble on Seb’s cheek, cool. Still not warm. Still not fully alive.

He moved, slowly, until he was hovering over Sebastian’s mouth, breathing in his air, his breath, his doubts and fears and regrets. His nothing, his everything. Sebastian let him, let him have it all. Maybe, if he gave up what he was, Joseph could become again.

He was worried if he blinked, he would still disappear.

Joseph closed the gap, pressed his mouth against Sebastian’s. Languid kisses that were wet, filled the air around them with sounds that seemed to overpower even their tiny breaths, the shifts of bodies as Joseph let his hand clutch at Sebastian’s too-long hair. Lazy, as Sebastian's tongue pressed into Joseph’s mouth, testing the points of his teeth.

Wanting them to pierce the muscle.

Blood was real. Blood was what they knew- what they’d know, forever.

They would never forget, Sebastian knew. They would never be the same. They may not even ever exist again- for he still feared, as Joseph settled in against his chest again, that come morning, he would wake alone.

That this was another dream, an almost-reality set to leave him fully unhinged.

Maybe he had never truly left. Maybe he had died, in that world, and this was the purgatory he had made for himself. And endless barrage of would-be moments. Of Joseph almost coming back. And this was simply the latest, would sting the most, if when he opened his eyes- heavy now, closing because Joseph, though starved, was still a familiar weight against him- this man was gone.

Just another breath of ash. Just another memory.


End file.
